We are living amid a technological revolution that is transforming the globe. Changes are visible in all aspects of our lives from transportation, health, and communications. As the adage states, yesterday's science fiction is today's science. We are now expanding our capabilities in every area of science, chemistry, biology, physics, and engineering. That includes heightened spae exploration, as well as building smart cities, new manufacturing hubs, and developing artificial intelligence and quantum technologies. The rapid pace of technological change is clearly visible, but much of what you may not see, the exceedingly small physical components of change called nanotechnologies, are catalyzing the revolution. While there are many nanotech uses, three areas of nanotech are paving the way to our future: Materials Science, Nanomedicine and Device Engineering.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter is still pushing boundaries long after its first Mars liftoff. As CNET notes, the space agency has shared video of Ingenuity's milestone 25th flight on April 8th, when it broke duration and speed records. The robotic helicopter flew at 12MPH for just over two minutes and 41 seconds, providing footage of the Red Planet's rippling sands and rock fields as part of the 2,310-foot journey. The footage you see below was sped up to cut the viewing time to 35 seconds. The video doesn't include the very start and end of the trip, but for good reason.

A supercomputer in the US called'Frontier' has become the fastest in the world, beating its closest rival in Japan. Frontier, based at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, is the first to achieve a level of computing known as'exascale'. Exascale refers to a system that can perform at least one quintillion operations per second – a billion billion calculations, or 1 followed by 18 zeroes. This makes Frontier more than twice as powerful than the Fugaku supercomputer in Japan, which was deemed the world's fastest supercomputer back in June 2020. Frontier will allow scientists to develop technologies for the US's energy, economic and national security, said Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and solve computational problems that were impossible to do just five years ago.

GreyOrange announced an agreement with Blue Yonder to leverage their combined digital warehouse management system (WMS) and order management system (OMS) solutions to speed up fulfillment modernization for joint customers. Together, GreyOrange and Blue Yonder provide the broadest range of options for businesses focused on fulfillment as a competitive edge. Real-time orchestration and management of entire robotic fleets enable substantial increases in fulfillment throughput and accuracy across the ecosystem. "Blue Yonder's warehouse management and order management solutions are recognized by industry analysts as best-in-class and the brands they serve are market leaders," said Lesley Simmonds, vice president, global business development and alliances, GreyOrange. "We are looking forward to bringing the powerful combination of software and robots in our fulfillment platform and Blue Yonder's warehouse management and order management solutions to companies that want to use modern fulfillment as a strategic advantage that dramatically improves customer service as well as cost-efficiency."

Ants, as a group, are creatures of habit. While an individual's path isn't certain, biologists who have spent a lot of time watching the behavior of entire colonies can predict the average time any one ant might wander around underground before resurfacing. That got NASA physicist Yongxiang Hu wondering if the same predictability might be true of photons--particles of light--traveling through the snowpack. If so, that would let scientists use a laser pulsed from an orbiting satellite to estimate snow depth--potentially a powerful new way to monitor water supplies and the health of sea ice in the Arctic. NASA's ICESat-2 satellite is equipped with lidar, the same variety of laser system that self-driving cars use to build 3D maps of their surroundings.

Humanoid robot soldiers that come alive in virtual reality (VR) are set to be used to train British Army paratroopers for combat. Troops at 16 Air Assault Brigade will be put through their paces at a special VR training experience at their facilities in Colchester, Essex. The'humanoid robotic targets', called SimStrikers, fire BB gun-style pellets at the troops whilst shouting in foreign languages. In real life, the humanoids look like mannequins, but in virtual reality they appear as avatars of enemy fighters. The'humanoid robotic targets', called SimStrikers, are armed with BB gun-style pellets that they fire at the troops whilst shouting in foreign languages.

ISLAMABAD: Seventy-five percent work of Pakistan first high-standard artificial intelligence laboratory under CPEC at National University of Science and Technology (NUST) has been completed while the equipment installation is almost 100% finished, Gwadar Pro reported on Saturday. At the beginning of this year, the laboratory under CPEC–Qingluan Artificial Intelligence Laboratory was officially established at NUST, with joint efforts of NUST and Guangzhou Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Research, development and customization is currently underway. I would say work is almost finished to 75%." Muhammad Khubaib Shabbir, Deputy Director of China Study Center of NUST told Gwadar Pro. The lab has been put into full use, both students and teaching staff are keen on researching Pattern and Facial Recognition algorithms, the reporter learned. "Currently, Cogniser-V1 intelligent video analysis project-a pilot project with the Government of Pakistan, and a commercial project, namely GymBot are the main projects that are under development." "Ideally, Cognizer-V1 is one of the most sophisticated surveillance equipment, which has the capability of converting ordinary cameras and surveillance equipment into a Smart Equipment, using AI and Computer Vision Algorithms." "To put it simple, the Cognizer-V1 has the ability to sense the people who are lurking around in certain areas and generate warnings, regarding dangerous behavioral patterns such as suicide, or other suspicious activities." In the case of Pakistan, the country is blessed with a large number of artificial intelligence application scenarios and a huge market, thanks to its world's 6th largest population. Moreover, the country is never short on talents. However, challenges lie in the commercialization of scientific achievements– an important step which can be viewed as one of the sources for innovation. Due to the backward industrial conditions and obstruction of international exchanges during the epidemic, the progress of commercialization in Pakistani scientific research institutes has been extremely slow. "Our other key project, 'GymBot', can be a perfect example of science commercialization.

Artificial intelligence evokes hope and anxiety. Will we master it, or will it control us? Kwame A. A Opoku and Tendai Joe think a lot about artificial intelligence -- where it's come from and what lies ahead -- from different perspectives. Opoku is a futurist, global business speaker and founder of the think tank, Idea Factory Africa. Joe is involved in software and mobile application development, and digital publishing.

Research in the field of machine learning and AI, now a key technology in practically every industry and company, is far too voluminous for anyone to read it all. This column, Perceptron (previously Deep Science), aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers -- particularly in, but not limited to, artificial intelligence -- and explain why they matter. This week in AI, researchers discovered a method that could allow adversaries to track the movements of remotely-controlled robots even when the robots' communications are encrypted end-to-end. The coauthors, who hail from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, said that their study shows adopting the best cybersecurity practices isn't enough to stop attacks on autonomous systems. Remote control, or teleoperation, promises to enable operators to guide one or several robots from afar in a range of environments.

While the idea of living on Mars may sound like the plot of the latest science fiction blockbuster, firms including NASA and SpaceX are seriously considering it as a possibility. Several challenges currently stand in our way, including building a self-sufficient spacecraft that can take crew safely, and finding a way to shield astronauts from dangerous solar and cosmic radiation - not to mention enabling them to live in microgravity on a planet with no atmosphere. This week, Lord Martin Rees, one of the country's leading astronomers, claimed that the obvious solution to some of these problems is making future explorers part-cyborg. Lord Rees told the Hay Festival: 'These intrepid explorers on Mars will be out of the clutches of the regulators and they will have every incentive to modify themselves because they are very badly adapted for Mars. 'They will use all these techniques to adapt themselves.